requesting wagons

[sir douglas]

i dont recall reading anything about this side of the goods business so i'll ask here. 

 

Lets say i have something large like a traction engine which i want sending from from A to B by rail so i go to the A goods office about it, a suitable lowloader turns up and the tractor is loaded, i know from there it has a label clipped to the soldebar saying that its going to B and depending on how far its going, the wagon is picked up and dropped off goods trains until it gets there

 

But what is the process of the "A" good office requesting a suitable wagon? how do they know where it is? and what is the order of communication to the other end to get it sent on to A, wagons cant just magically appear whenever they are needed

[Steamport Southport]

Telegraph for one. Later a phone call.

 

That's what the code words painted on them were for. For example here is the GWR codes.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Western_Railway_telegraphic_codes

 

If you needed a Loriot (machine truck) for example, you would telegraph the main goods depot and they would find one and send it as soon as possible. Usually just attached to a train going the same way.

 

 

Jason

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, sir douglas said:

i dont recall reading anything about this side of the goods business so i'll ask here. 

 

Lets say i have something large like a traction engine which i want sending from from A to B by rail so i go to the A goods office about it, a suitable lowloader turns up and the tractor is loaded, i know from there it has a label clipped to the soldebar saying that its going to B and depending on how far its going, the wagon is picked up and dropped off goods trains until it gets there

 

But what is the process of the "A" good office requesting a suitable wagon? how do they know where it is? and what is the order of communication to the other end to get it sent on to A, wagons cant just magically appear whenever they are needed

Basically they order the wagon in advance but the dimensions of the load would be needed in order to get a suitable wagon which could well involve going through a District Office freight section to get the gauging checked out and for a loads inspector to decide which was the best type of wagon to use.  The gauging would incidentally have to be checked in advance for the whole route the wagon would be taking although that wouldn't necessarily involve people in going out and physically measuring things.

[rodent279]

But..... pre-TOPS, how would they know the whereabouts of a suitable wagon?

[The Stationmaster]

19 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

But..... pre-TOPS, how would they know the whereabouts of a suitable wagon?

Fairly simple.  Most specialised wagons would have been allocated to a home station  where they would be kept when not being used and where they should be returned to after use.  Which of course doesn't help if every example of a suitable type of wagon id s being used and arrangements have to await one becoming available.  

[Mark Saunders]

25 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

But..... pre-TOPS, how would they know the whereabouts of a suitable wagon?

Their location had to be reported daily!

[HGR]

25 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

But..... pre-TOPS, how would they know the whereabouts of a suitable wagon?

All done by hand on paper forms. Individual locations had to submit daily returns of wagons 'on hand' loaded, awaiting unloading, or empty and whether otherwise 'carded' for repair etc. Individual wagon numbers were not reported, just the totals / quantities for each type. There were slight differences in how 'common user' (what used to be pool, not to be confused with TOPS pool numbers) wagons were reported and those on circuit workings or specials.

 

The returns would ripple up to district offices, and on up to regional control. Wagon needs for the following day were similarly passed up the chain, and should be satisfied divisionally or regionally. May even require inter-regionals if supply was being outstripped by unusually high local needs. 

 

Specially constructed vehicles used for exceptional loads received their own dedicated control but the principle was similar. 'Stationmaster' has just posted about these wagons' home station while I'm typing this.

 

 

 

[sir douglas]

so place "C" has this wagon and the regional office would know of this through the daily telegram report, so when they receive the request from A, they tell C to send it to A

 

is this right as i understand it from your replies

[jwealleans]

For specials, certainly.   Otherwise, Place C would look at what they had, work out what they needed for expected traffic, request what they didn't have from the local office and send surplus empties back to the nearest yard on the most convenient goods working.

 

Have you watched Train Time?   That will give you an idea of how it worked.

[HGR]

7 minutes ago, sir douglas said:

so place "C" has this wagon and the regional office would know of this through the daily telegram report, so when they receive the request from A, they tell C to send it to A

 

is this right as i understand it from your replies

District control would try to satisfy the need within their own area if possible. Outstations would not routinely hang on to empties unless there was often an anticipated return loading for them. If not, empties would tend to get tripped back to the district area's sorting yard and linger there till next needed. This would typically be the location where routine maintenance such as axlebox oiling would be done. If a wagon of the right type wasn't available within the district it would be transferred over to the regional returns to be resolved at that level.

 

Control would usually not instruct an outstation to send a wagon directly to the station needing it, unless it was urgent. Though they might ask for it to be tagged on to a service heading in the right general direction to expedite if needs be. Instead the wagon would be called up to the area yard, for onward move to the place needed. To prevent any opportunistic local interference in this, empties running in train used to be endorsed 'must not be intercepted en route'. 

 

 

 

[airnimal]

I am surprised that the diagram book has not been brought into the equation regarding the ordering of the correct wagon for any unusual load. 

[Mark Saunders]

Specials were a regional thing as the same wagon had a different Telegraph code depending on region!

[sir douglas]

1 hour ago, jwealleans said:

Have you watched Train Time?   That will give you an idea of how it worked.

 

just watched it, fascinating stuff. thanks for the suggestion

Edited April 19, 2021 by sir douglas

[sir douglas]

so, the wagon last used at C goes back to its home at D which it is then requested from to A?

[Rivercider]

3 hours ago, Mark Saunders said:

Their location had to be reported daily!

Or hidden, if the station concerned might need that type of wagon at some point in the near future perhaps!

 

cheers

[Compound2632]

Daily return of wagons at Foulridge, 19 Sept 1862 [Midland Railway Study Centre Item 28505].

[jwealleans]

7 hours ago, sir douglas said:

so, the wagon last used at C goes back to its home at D which it is then requested from to A?

 

If it's a Special, yes.  Their location was monitored and as has been said above their workings carefully managed.   If it was a common user wagon it would go back to the nearest yard.

 

 

[Trog]

10 hours ago, Rivercider said:

Or hidden, if the station concerned might need that type of wagon at some point in the near future perhaps!

 

cheers

 

Hidden if only it was that easy! I once had to go as far as lifting out the rails in a siding to prevent the Senior Relaying Supervisor from helping himself to a Tench wagon I needed in a couple of days time.

[C126]

May I just ask a supplementary question to this, which has been nagging me since seeing the B.T.F. 'T.O.P.S.' film suggested on a different thread: where were 'spare' wagons stabled?  If I remember correctly, yards came under an 'Area Freight Centre', which allocated wagons to the traffic required for each daily freight train.  Would a 'Vanfit' be nabbed as empty from the nearest siding, or sent from a 'pool' somewhere?  I.e., did the A.F.C. have a rake of sidings filled with wagons ready to go out and earn their keep?  I am interested in the T.O.P.S. era, early 1970's to mid '80's.  Many thanks to all, and for the replies above, including the original question.

[Guy Rixon]

14 hours ago, rodent279 said:

But..... pre-TOPS, how would they know the whereabouts of a suitable wagon?

I read one one case (in Model railways illustrated IIRC) where vans were moved to a designated location when empty and sent out from there. This was early BR and the local shunters would separate out the ventilated and non-ventilated vans as needed.

[Rivercider]

1 hour ago, Trog said:

 

Hidden if only it was that easy! I once had to go as far as lifting out the rails in a siding to prevent the Senior Relaying Supervisor from helping himself to a Tench wagon I needed in a couple of days time.

Ha!

 

As the WR Civil Engineers wagon supervisor my dad was on the other side.

Part of his job was chasing up lost or delayed wagons. He might visit a yard looking for a salmon of rails

which had apparently been on hand for 2 weeks only to find it empty. Then when he tried to make arrangements for it to be shunted out was told by the local pway that 'we are loading that with scrap in three weeks time'.

Of course the wagon might well have been needed somewhere else that coming weekend. Oh what fun he had at times.

 

cheers

 

[jwealleans]

59 minutes ago, C126 said:

did the A.F.C. have a rake of sidings filled with wagons ready to go out and earn their keep?

 

Pretty much and before they were AFCs that's how the big yards worked.  They would also have to send in returns, so Control had an idea what was where and could, for example, order 200 cattle wagons to Holyhead for expected traffic, or to Cornwall for Broccoli or whatever else needed moving.

 

It was an inexact science and I have copies of circulars which listed missing wagons which were to be returned to specific locations if found.  When the LNER was created, the Chairman (William Whitelaw) was on record as saying that they had inherited a wagon from the 1860s as part of the stock, but that they couldn't find it so assumed it had been scrapped/written off prior to 1923.

 

 

 

 

[Fat Controller]

57 minutes ago, C126 said:

May I just ask a supplementary question to this, which has been nagging me since seeing the B.T.F. 'T.O.P.S.' film suggested on a different thread: where were 'spare' wagons stabled?  If I remember correctly, yards came under an 'Area Freight Centre', which allocated wagons to the traffic required for each daily freight train.  Would a 'Vanfit' be nabbed as empty from the nearest siding, or sent from a 'pool' somewhere?  I.e., did the A.F.C. have a rake of sidings filled with wagons ready to go out and earn their keep?  I am interested in the T.O.P.S. era, early 1970's to mid '80's.  Many thanks to all, and for the replies above, including the original question.

Looking at 'British Marshalling Yards' by Michael Rhodes, in 1965, Tinsley Yard had roads reserved for 'spare Hyfits', spare 'vanfits', spare steel wagons and spare coal wagons. Similar arrangements existed throughout the country; Whitemoor had a siding of concrete-beam wagons of various types, and another of Fruit vans.

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, Trog said:

 

Hidden if only it was that easy! I once had to go as far as lifting out the rails in a siding to prevent the Senior Relaying Supervisor from helping himself to a Tench wagon I needed in a couple of days time.

One day a BRB Wagon Inspector walked into myy office at Newport Maesglas and told me, rather brusquely, that  there was a ShocHigh up on Mon Bank and didn't i know they were in very short supply and I should get it shunted out ready to go where it was needed within fail.   I looked the twit very firmly in the eye and asked him if he was going to order the crane or did he want me to do it using his name as authority?  At that point he started to get rather apologetic because he realised that his bluster had been found out and he couldn't swing things on someone else.

 

BTW the wagon was on the blocks and between it and the open end of the siding there were about 16 concrete sleepered bullhead rail track sections stacked four sections high.  presumably he thought he could try it on and then report the local management for not doing his bidding.  Oh, and he wasn't prepared to have a crane ordered out in his name.

 

BTW under the BR Freight Rolling Stock Control system Control offices were not involved.  Stations and yards reported their daily returns to the Divisional (freight) Rolling Stock section (very often only one person in Divisions with limited freight work, for example in the London Division of the WR there was one Rolling Stock Clerk.  The Divisions reported their Divisional total figures to RHQ and RHQ reported Regional totals to the BRB.  Distribution orders would then come back down the chain with the BRB instructing, when necessary, Regions to 'pay' any surplus of particular types of general use vehicles to any other region which needed them and RHQ translating that into orders for each Division and the division doing the same as needed between yards and stations.

 

By the 1960s there were noticeable seasonal peaks in the use of the most common wagon types so at various times they would be stood aside wherever there was room to hold them.  One thing which TOPS did was highlight the continuing surpluses very accurately which enabled reduction of the wagon fleet and the removal of sidings which did nothing but hold empty wagons of the same type all year round.  Vanfits were an interesting case because many yards hung onto them all year round because they 'needed' them for fitted head and all the vehicles did was sit ina yard or go round and round it never doing a thing to earn money or provide a fitted head.

[The Johnster]

This has all been most illuminating. an aspect of railway work that I did not pay sufficient attention to when I was on the railway though I was aware of some of the inter-departmental kerfuffles.  I occasionally attach a Fruit or Shocvan as tail traffic on passenger trains at Cwmdimbath, and organise ad hoc pit prop workings to the colliery, and assume these are organised by Control, a semi mythical organisation of men in dark hooded cloaks carrying black candles and chanting ominously in Latin, or the language of Cthulu, most of which takes place in some eldritch crypt to virgin sacrifice, which is why it's never happened in Cardiff as they can't find a virgin. 

 

The colliery generates all sorts of traffic.  As well as the props, there is an occasional delivery of blasting powder in a GPV, sand or gravel for the pithead baths and canteen block under construction (I suppose I could just about justify a Presflo for this under Rule 1), unspecified equipment in long wooden Peco crates or as lumps under tarps, calibrated weighing equipment in shocvans, cable drums.  This is mostly done on the morning pickup which has time allowed for the shunting movements.

 

Which begs a further related question; in the case of an industrial customer like a colliery, what is the path by which goods such as these, outside the normal run of mineral empties in and loadeds out, are ordered and the vehicles they came in returned.  I assume that lack of space at the colliery will usually be a motive for them to be returned to BR asap, but are they simply put on the exchange road for collection by the pickup (this is what happens at Cwmdimbath) and taken to the nearest big yard (Tondu) where there is space for them (space is at a premium on the narrow floor of Cwmdimbath's valley), or do Control in their spooky and occult machinations already have tasks for them to perform, or is it a mixture of both? 

 

I imagine that small industrial concerns do this through the local goods agent, but that the likes of the NCB have different arrangements; OTOH, it is feasible that the goods agent could be the contact for a local pit manager.  For the smaller pits, this is probably what happened before the mines and railway were nationalised, and such arrangements may have continued on an 'ain't broke no need to fix it' basis for a while; TOPS would have ended any that survived into the 70s.